Here they are, the 2000s, and Barbara Ehrenreich's antidotes are as sardonic as they are spot-on: pet insurance for your kids; Salvation Army fashions for those who can no longer afford Wal-Mart; and boundless rage against those who have given us a nation scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty.

Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

Americans are a "positive" people - cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity. In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal 19th-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude.

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

The best-selling author of Nickel and Dimed goes back undercover to do for America's ailing middle class what she did for the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in Bait and Switch, she enters another hidden realm of the economy: the world of the white-collar unemployed.

Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth About Everything

In middle age, Ehrenreich came across the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence and set out to reconstruct that quest, which had taken her to the study of science and through a cataclysmic series of uncanny - or as she later learned to call them, "mystical" - experiences. A staunch atheist and rationalist, she is profoundly shaken by the implications of her life-long search. Certain to be a classic, Living with a Wild God combines intellectual rigor with a frank account of the inexplicable, in Ehrenreich's singular voice, to produce a true literary achievement.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

This engrossing piece of undercover reportage has been a fixture on the New York Times best seller list since its publication. With nearly a million copies in print, Nickel and Dimed is a modern classic that deftly portrays the plight of America's working-class poor.

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely revolutionized the way we think about ourselves, our minds, and our actions in his books Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth About Dishonesty. Ariely applies this scientific analysis of the human condition in his "Ask Ariely" Q and A column in the Wall Street Journal, in which he responds to readers who write in with personal conundrums ranging from the serious to the curious.

Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America

In her thought-provoking voice, Tirado discusses how she went from lower-middle class, to sometimes middle class, to poor and everything in between, and in doing so reveals why "poor people don't always behave the way middle-class America thinks they should."

Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - and What We Can Do About It

Our founding fathers worked hard to ensure that a small group of wealthy people would never dominate this country. Thomas Jefferson believed that our very democracy depends upon our ability to play referee to the game of business, protecting labor and the public good. But over the last 25 years, we've witnessed an undeclared war against the middle class.

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy

From best-selling social commentator and cultural historian Barbara Ehrenreich comes this fascinating exploration of one of humanity's oldest traditions: the celebration of communal joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture, showing that such mass festivities have been indigenous to the West since the ancient Greeks.

Analyzing the movement's deep-seated origins in questions that the country has sought too long to ignore, some of the greatest economic minds and most incisive cultural commentators capture the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in all its ragged glory. They give listeners an on-the-scene feel for the movement as it unfolds while exploring the heady growth of the protests, considering the lasting changes wrought, and recommending reform.

Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class - made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding - has been growing in power for a generation.

Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists

Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Damned Lies and Statistics is essential listening for everyone who reads or listens to the news....

The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke

In this revolutionary exposé, Harvard Law School bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren and financial consultant Amelia Tyagi show that today's middle-class parents are increasingly trapped by financial meltdowns. Astonishingly, sending mothers to work has made families more vulnerable to financial disaster than ever before. Today's two-income family earns 75% more money than its single-income counterpart of a generation ago, but has 25% less discretionary income to cover living costs.

Audible Editor Reviews

In this collection of short essays, Ehrenreich takes on her usual topics - economic and social injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich, the diminishment of American freedoms and of the middle class - all from her usual strongly populist viewpoint. Cassandra Campbell's voice is pleasant and professional. Perhaps it's too soothing - it could have a bit more edge, given Ehrenreich's nearly constant use of sardonic mockery, satire, and plain old disdain. Misreadings and mispronunciations, while few, are glaring. Still, Campbell expresses the feelings the text conveys (though never very strongly), modulates her voice skillfully, and is easy to listen to. The listener will recall the audio more than the print reader, which is perhaps not a bad thing.

Publisher's Summary

Barbara Ehrenreich's first book of satirical commentary, The Worst Years of Our Lives, which was about the Reagan era, was received with best-selling acclaim. The one problem was the title: couldn't some prophetic fact-checker have seen that the worst years of our lives - far worse - were still to come?

Here they are, the 2000s, and in This Land Is Their Land, Ehrenreich subjects them to the most biting and incisive satire of her career.

Taking the measure of what we are left with after the cruelest decade in memory, Ehrenreich finds lurid extremes all around. While members of the moneyed elite can buy congressmen, many in the working class can barely buy lunch. While a wealthy minority obsessively consumes cosmetic surgery, the poor often go without health care for their children. And while the corporate C-suites are now nests of criminality, the less fortunate are fed a diet of morality, marriage, and abstinence.

Ehrenreich's antidotes are as sardonic as they are spot-on: pet insurance for your kids; Salvation Army fashions for those who can no longer afford Wal-Mart; and boundless rage against those who have given us a nation scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty.

It contained no new insights just the age old laundry list of sins by corporate / state interests and the seemingly endless bull Americans will endure. This was obviously a 'preach to the choir' piece. Pretty much pointless overall.

Worth a listen if and only if
1. Your a bit liberal. Conservatives probably would rather not hear facts. Not that this book is just facts, that's just what she uses to make her points.
2. You like political rants. While this is not per say a political rant, it does have that liberal rant feel.

Like I said worth a listen, does have a nice use of sarcasm, and some very good points on the topics she covers. Highly recommend.

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